Quotes about Relevance

We perceive God, think about God, and talk about God in ways that make sense to us by virtue of when and where we live.

The Bible is not, never has been, and never will be the center of the Christian faith.

adapting the past to speak to changing circumstances in the present.

Without its unwavering commitment to adaptation over time, the Bible would have died a quick death over two thousand years ago. Its existence as a source of spiritual truth that transcends specific times and places is made possible by its flexibility and adaptive nature—one of the many paradoxes we need to embrace when it comes to the Bible.

A God who does not connect to the world around us is a God who cannot speak to us. Believing in a God who demands that we continue to adopt only biblically ancient ways of thinking of God, which are themselves rooted in their own cultural moment, is to diminish God's active presence here and now.

We are all culturally embedded creatures—we can never untangle ourselves from our here and now. We perceive God, think about God, and talk about God in ways that make sense to us by virtue of when and where we live.

Do I say this from a human perspective? Doesn’t the Law say the same thing?

Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me.

every organization must contribute in some way to a better world for some group of people, because if it doesn't, it will, and should, go out of business.

If everything is important, nothing is

It's not that they go out of their way to tick off their clients. It's just that they're so focused on saying and doing whatever is in the best interests of those clients that they stop worrying about the repercussions. They make themselves completely vulnerable, or naked, and don't try to protect themselves.

there is nothing worse than the feeling that no one cares whether we exist or not, that no one is interested in what we have to say about life, and that the world can continue turning without our awkward presence. I began to imagine how many millions of people were, at that moment, feeling utterly useless and wretched—however rich, charming, and delightful they might be—because they were alone that night, as they were yesterday, and as they might well be tomorrow.